British farmers face mass slaughter heartbreak
British farmers are bracing themselves for a mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of healthy animals in a bid to halt the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.
Under the plan announced by Britain's Agriculture Minister Nick Brown, more than 100,000 sheep and pigs susceptible to the disease are to be culled in areas of high infection.
The move comes as the number of confirmed cases rose to 251, including Northern Ireland.
Britain's National Farmers' Union says it accepts the slaughter programme as "grim but necessary".
But Andrew Spence, regional co-ordinator for Farmers For Action, North East, said the announcement would cause "rural revolt".
He said: "There are a lot of farmers up here who are going to go hell for leather at the Government. Farmers up here will not tolerate anyone coming in and slaughtering animals that are not infected.
"We want a meeting with Nick Brown within the next 24 hours and we want the army brought in to get the infected animals slaughtered and dealt with immediately."
The 18 new cases confirmed yesterday included a second in Kent, which had only previously seen one confirmed case, a MAFF spokesman said.
There were a further four cases confirmed in Cumbria, and one each in Anglesey, Dumfries and Galloway, Devon, Worcester and Oxfordshire.
The culls will be carried out in three kilometre-wide areas of Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway, where the infection rate has been highest, and will take three to four weeks to complete, said chief vet Jim Scudamore.
